It's the governor – our governor -- running naked and in slow motion through the fields of Alabama.

Make it stop!

Oh, please, make it stop!

But it won't stop. Because the emperor, our Dr. Doctor emperor, is wearing no clothes.

The ironic-from-top-to-bottom Alabama Accountability Act, which will offer tax credits to parents so they can pay to put kids in schools with ... less accountability, is many, many things.

It is a coup by Gov. Bentley and his fellows in the Naked City. It is a win for those who have long sought some form of school choice. It is an uppercut to institution of public schools.

It is not, however, what its champions keep telling us it is. It is not about accountability. And it is certainly not about helping poor children in failing school districts.

It just doesn't add up.

Under the bill, parents in failing schools who want to put children in private schools could get a tax credit of up to 80 percent of the average state cost of sending a kid to a public K-12 school.

What was the average per-student spending by the state last year? About $5,000. So 80 percent of that is about $4,000.

What is the average cost of private school? The National Center for Education Statistics says it was $10,000 a year in 2007, and rising by more than $400 a year.

And what is the median income in a place with a struggling school districts like, say, Greene County? About $23,000.

It is not going to happen. Because the Alabama Accountability Act is not what it appears to be.

It will help some people, sure.

It will help those who want to profit at private schools, which vary in quality and sincerity as much as public schools, but face far less academic and financial scrutiny.

It will help compensate people who already gave up on public schools, like those who send their children to segregation academies in the Black Belt. It will help those in places like Birmingham's Forest Park, where private schools are considered a cost of living.

It will not help single mothers who pay little or no income tax. It will not help families too poor to pay the difference. It will not help most of those in poor districts, and it will certainly not help those districts.

It will kill them.

Poor students will remain in poor, struggling schools, which will become poorer and struggle more with every student that leaves, taking with them, as the Act prescribes, sales tax money that would have gone to the public schools.

And the governor and his House of Naked Lords tell us it is in an effort to help those in poor, failing schools.

That they did it in secret is just more political obscenity. That they hatched the plan in their smoke-free back rooms – keeping it hush-hush from even their so-called allies at the State Department of Education – is just evidence of the nudity.

But the real issue is the lie.

Alabama's most powerful leaders stood in our hallowed halls, telling us they are concerned about students in the poorest of our schools. And they clothed it all in the smart suit of "accountability."

The bill has the potential to devastate the ETF [ Educational Trust Fund ], which has yet to return to pre-recession revenue levels.

The most obvious hit comes from the $25 million scholarship fund. If set up differently, it might be difficult to find people willing to contribute money to a scholarship fund for private schools. The 100 percent tax credit on contributions, however, makes it an excellent tax-avoidance tool. Corporations that contribute will get a tax credit of 50 cents on the dollar.

Every dollar that goes into the scholarship fund comes out of the ETF.

Not all of the $25 million in scholarship funds benefits the students. An unlimited number of not-for-profit entities can distribute the scholarship money, and they get to keep $1.25 million in administrative fees.

The bill places no limit on the tuition charged by the private school. Effectively, therefore, the ETF scholarship could be financing students' tuition at elite schools charging $20,000 a year. Unlike the public schools with which they will compete, the private schools can borrow money or operate at a loss until they have attracted all the students they want.

A portion of the ETF-funded scholarships must go to students whose families are at 200 percent or less of poverty level, but the portion is tied to the percentage of low-income students in the county, not the failing school's zone or district. 'Eligible student' is at one point defined as only including students from households at 150 percent of median income. If scholarships are limited to 'eligible students,' they would be available to households making up to $65,000 a year. On its face, however, the bill does not limit most scholarships to 'eligible students.'

Indeed, 25 percent of the $25 million in tax-funded scholarship money can go to families who already are enrolled in a private school.

Even if students currently enrolled in a private school fail to snag a scholarship, they still will get to apply the $3,500 tax credit to their tuition. They become eligible for the credit if they live in a failing school's zone, even if they have never attended the school. Neither lawmakers nor the state Board of Education have any figures on how many students, already enrolled in private schools, will benefit from a $3,500 ETF voucher to offset tuition.

The law requires the failing public school to provide expensive services for disabled students, even if those students transfer to a private school with their ETF voucher.

Because the vouchers are in the form of tax credits, poor families who do not receive a scholarship will have a significant hurdle in attending private schools. They will not receive the credit, which can include a rebate if their tax liability is less than $3,500, until long after their tuition bill is due at the private school.

No one knows how much the program will cost. The state Department of Education, which did not see the bill until just before it passed, had no idea Friday how many schools are "failing" as defined by the bill. The governor and other lawmakers had widely varying estimates.

The best estimate appeared to be from the office of Senate Pro Tem Del Marsh, which listed 202 failing Alabama schools. Neither Marsh's office nor the Education Department could provide enrollment numbers for the 202 schools, and until they can, there is no way to estimate the ETF's exposure. If enrollment in the schools averages 300 — a wild guess — the ETF could lose up to $215 million a year on the voucher program alone, plus another $25 million for the scholarship program and an unknown amount for vouchers distributed to students assigned to failing schools but already enrolled in private schools.

Discerning the intent of HB84 is impossible because there was no public debate before it passed. If the intent was to harm Alabama's public schools — both those that are failing and those that are not — it is a brilliant piece of legislation.

What that is, is precisely the kind of transfer payments Republicans are usually so dead set against. "Legalized theft," they call it.

Well, in Alabama, that is precisely what you have.

Everybody in Alabama who pays the taxes that go into the Education Trust Fund OWN that trust fund. They have decided it should go to support the public schools of Alabama. And here you have the Republican governor and legislature flinging open the doors and handing out the dollars to anybody who wants to jump the public school ship.

I don't have kids in public school. I also don't mind my taxes going to public school.

What I DO object to is the Republican governor and legislature saying that if you are well enough off that your kids are already in private school, well, we're going to cut you a check, too!

That's "legalized robbery" -- taking my public school tax contributions and handing it over to a rich snot to subsidize his kids' private school bill!

“See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”― George W. Bush

The Propagandist wrote:What that is, is precisely the kind of transfer payments Republicans are usually so dead set against. "Legalized theft," they call it.

Well, in Alabama, that is precisely what you have.

Everybody in Alabama who pays the taxes that go into the Education Trust Fund OWN that trust fund. They have decided it should go to support the public schools of Alabama. And here you have the Republican governor and legislature flinging open the doors and handing out the dollars to anybody who wants to jump the public school ship.

I don't have kids in public school. I also don't mind my taxes going to public school.

What I DO object to is the Republican governor and legislature saying that if you are well enough off that your kids are already in private school, well, we're going to cut you a check, too!

That's "legalized robbery" -- taking my public school tax contributions and handing it over to a rich snot to subsidize his kids' private school bill!

Just your usual Republican SOP. Nothing new here, folks, move along.

Max M. Haiflich, Jr.Free = no regulations = survival of the fittest = SomaliaSo in summation, the Conservative Republican’s Political Platform is, LIES, MORE LIES, OUTRAGIOUS LIES, and DAMN STUPID LIES, because we represent the word of GOD.

Let's hope the AEA is able to slow-walk its temporary restraining order against the Alabama Accountability Act: If Gov. Robert Bentley gets to sign the bill anytime soon, one thing is sure: He won't know what he is doing.

Our Alabama Department of Education, the Alabama Association of School Boards and the School Superintendents of Alabama have been analyzing the hastily drawn act since its chaotic passage Thursday night. So far, all they know is there are many unknowns. Among them:

Based on the income tax credit for individuals and corporations, there is a negative impact on the total potential income to the Education Trust Fund. Nobody has a clue how much.

The bill requires that for any student identified as needing special education services, those services remain the responsibility of the original local school system – even though the child no longer attends that system. How will that work?

The bill outlines clear criteria for non-public schools that participate in the scholarship portion of the program, but not for those non-public schools that simply accept the tax credit amount for tuition reimbursement.

The bill requires local school systems to be responsible for transportation costs if a student transfers from a "failing" public school to a "non-failing" public school in the same system, although some school systems don't offer transportation services to any of their students.

Even Republicans who voted for the act scratch their heads when asked what the costs and repercussions will be.

Gov. Bentley, through a spokesperson last night, conceded that there may be problems with the legislation but, "These concerns could be addressed through future policies moving forward."

State laws are, well, laws. You don't change them with administrative policy; you must repeal them or replace them with new laws. And that will require the Republicans to work with the embittered Democrats they just snookered.

Bentley and the Republican leadership have broken faith with the Alabama Department of Education and its superintendent, Tommy Bice. As governor, Bentley chairs the state Board of Education that promoted Bice to superintendent 16 months ago. Because he chose to keep Bice in the dark about the bill, the governor just may have to go shopping for a new superintendent soon.

Bentley is the CEO of our state. Good CEOs should not treat their own people with such contempt. And good CEOs don't allow themselves to be talked into imprudent action by their juniors, in this case a giddy Sen. Del Marsh (R-Anniston), who celebrated this dubious legislative triumph like a frat boy after a panty raid.

Essentially, Gov. Bentley has said that he had to do this "for the children," that the ends justified the means. But he does not know the impact that the loose "ends" will have. And he has no idea what the fallout from last week's secret conference-committee switcheroo -- the means – will be. Today's lawsuit from the AEA is only the beginning.

When the Republicans took control of Alabama in 2010, they promised a new era of transparency in government, and they even championed a watershed reform package to show they meant business.

Whatever happened to those guys?

Drunk with power after three short years, Alabama's Republican leadership is no longer republican.